PreCursive
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Chapter 51 - Damned
🕑 Added 2023-07-30 21:55:33 +0000 UTCLater that night, Grey and I were relaxing in his room. The sun was setting, and his room was lit by flickering candlelight by now, casting everything in dancing shadow. Azarus had called an early night, citing some business he had early in the morning. I don’t even know how it had happened, but Grey and I had migrated to his room where he had broken out a bottle of liquor. I didn’t typically drink much, but I wasn’t opposed to a bit of social drinking if the situation called for it.
I was slouching in an extra chair that Grey had, sitting at a small corner table. Grey was across from me, idly staring off into space. He’d been like that for a while, honestly. I guess he was a contemplative drunk. Speaking of, I reached down and picked up my glass with a splash of an extremely dark liquor in it. Taking a sip of it, I grimaced at the extremely powerful taste but continued drinking anyway.
“God, that stuff is rank,” I said, setting my glass back down.
Grey broke out of his trance long enough to let out a short laugh. “Gnollish liquor. An acquired taste of Azarus’s that he’s been forcing on me. I must admit, I have been growing a taste for it.” He said, picking up his own glass and taking a sip. He grimaced himself. “Somewhat.”
“Yeah, like a mold,” I muttered.
My mentor, I suppose you could call him, merely hummed.
We sat in silence for a short spell before Grey broke it.
Stirring, he caught my attention. Once he had it, he spoke up. “I believe I know where to go from here, Nathan. At the very least, I have an inkling of an idea.”
“For what?” I asked, swirling the liquid in my glass idly.
“In regards to your Professions…and our potential escape,” Grey said seriously.
His words sent a shiver down my spine, making me sit up and pay full attention. “Go on,” I said cautiously.
“The way I see it,” Grey said, drumming his fingers on the table. “There are two objectives we need to fulfill if we are to escape. The first, is we need to destroy the control slate that is bound to our collars.”
“Well, yeah I suppose,” I said confusedly. “That makes sense, but I didn’t know it was an option. If it was that easy in order to stop being a slave, why haven’t you brought it up before?”
Grey shook his head. “Merely destroying the control slate would not stop me from being a slave. If you’ll recall, a slave binding has two components to it. One is the collar itself, which possesses the death and tracking enchantment. The other is the actual brand itself, which possesses the Status binding effect and the tracking enchantment that you luckily do not have. The brand itself is symbolically linked to the collar, but it does not require it to function. These two separate enchantment cores work together in order to bind a slave. Destroying the slate would, however, prevent Magnus from remotely executing both of us after our escape. As well as complicating our re-capture through ease of tracking.”
“So, you just want to escape then? At least for now?”
“I believe it’s our best option, yes. My understanding is that the situation in the Kingdom is not yet dire enough that my presence wouldn’t calm matters, at least for a time. My Status, and thus my strength would still be bound. However, if I could have access to the higher-order tools I possess at the Academy, it would be much easier for me to devise a method of breaking my slave binding.” Grey answered soberly, despite the alcohol that he was even now studying in his glass.
“I see,” I said quietly. I guess it must have been painful for him to reach this decision. Despite myself, I felt a pang of shame. I knew Grey had been hoping I would manifest some kind of crazy ability to instantly free him from his binding, and I hadn’t. Sure, I had manifested some kind of extremely interesting new Profession, but it seemed like a stretch that it was going to save us. I guess the wonder of Aetherial Melding was wearing off for Grey, and reality was setting in. I studied my glass in silence for a moment, before raising my head back to Grey. “And the second thing we need?”
“What we need, is to create the conditions that would facilitate our escape,” Grey said, rising from his own contemplation of his glass and meeting my eyes. His gaze was surprisingly cold, sending a shiver down my back. “I believe I know how. We’ll break the wards.”
“Break the wards? Which ones?” I asked tentatively. “What would that do?”
“Addersfield possesses a standard set of settlement wards. In my time in this wretched town, and despite my bound Status, I’ve felt them out gradually. It is a stroke of luck that my slave binding did not also bind my higher-order senses, honed over many years. The wards here are nothing special, merely a set of monster-repellent wards and intrusion wards. They encircle the town, precisely along the borders of the wall. Walls in small settlements such as this are almost always built along the ward boundaries.”
“You didn’t say what breaking them would do,” I said quietly, with a growing sense of trepidation.
“When monster-repellant wards are broken,” Grey continued, ignoring me. “It acts as a beacon. Monsters have far keener Aetherial senses than most give them credit for. They are well aware of zones that have large concentrations of Aether that they could devour, if only they weren’t being repelled by powerful wards. This does two things. With the first, the shift in ambient Aether acts as an artificial spawning period, resulting in an increased production of monsters in the area. With the second, it draws those monsters to the former area like moths to a flame.”
My mouth opened involuntarily, listening to Grey. I didn’t speak though.
“They come in waves, at that point,” Grey said somberly. “Waves upon waves of monsters, both large and small. They come until they have devoured every source of Aether they can find in that previous void. Every person that lives and breathes. This process is well documented and known as the Breakage Effect. It is also…an internationally recognized war crime to deliberately inflict on others.”
I looked back down at my drink, so I wouldn’t have to meet Grey’s intense gaze. “And the punishment?”
“Unilaterally agreed upon execution. In all territories, in all nations.” Grey finished grimly.
We sat in silence for a time. I broke it.
“And you want to do this?” I whispered. “What about all the other people in town?”
Grey grew suddenly furious in a way I had never seen before. He pounded the table in anger with the hand holding his glass, cracking it. “They can be damned! There are no innocents in this den of fools, Nathan! No families raising children, no simple traders trying to make a living! Everyone here was handpicked by House Savoy from their slavishly loyal retainers in order to support their heir! All of them to the last are profiting from the broken backs of human refugees they’ve collared and bound! Stolen innocents, and for what?! So he can feed them to the monsters every month in order to satiate his sick desire?! Piss on the people of this town! Let them be fed to the monsters!”
I stared at Grey’s heaving form for a moment. “It’s not that simple, man,” I said, pained. “You know it isn’t. What about Van? Vandimar? He’s one of the dwarves of this town, and he doesn’t like slavery much himself. He’s even trying to save up money in order to free Bleddyn as well. And what about Gren, the merchant that drove us to Rhoscara?”
“What about him?” Grey said bitterly. He picked up his glass and threw back what was left in it, uncaring of how some had seeped through the new cracks.
“He’s based out of Addersfield for now, and he’s an all-right guy. He took a risk on Azarus and me, taking us to a city that’s so anti-slavery. He could have lost a huge chunk of his livelihood if we’d been discovered. Look, my point is this. I get that this town is probably packed full of assholes that don’t give a shit about us, or any other slave. But we don’t know everyone here. There are probably plenty of people in town that don’t deserve to become monster chow, and I personally know a couple. And,” I said, leaning forward. “That isn’t even counting all of the other slaves. They sure as hell don’t deserve being caught up in all of this.”
“Of course they don’t,” Grey said, frowning. “I’m not a monster, Nathan. I’d planned to escape with them as well. With the control slate destroyed, they can follow us back to the Kingdom. In the chaos of a Ward Break, the guards will be too busy trying to survive to care about the slaves. Once in the Kingdom, I’ll personally take responsibility for them until I discover a means to break their bindings as well.”
“And Gren and Van?” I said, matching his frown.
“They are free to accompany us as well. I don’t hate dwarves blindly, Nathan. Merely those that are content to suffer the existing franchise of enslavement. Ah, dammit.” Grey said, finally noticing the spill he had made. He grabbed a rag that was sitting on a nearby dresser and began to mop it up.
“Look, why do we even need to break the wards if we’re already planning to destroy the control slate? Can’t we just…escape with the rest of the slaves after we’ve done that?” I said, waving a hand aimlessly.
Grey shook his head. “If we leave the guards functional, they’ll catch us easily. Azarus, and anyone else we may end up taking with us, may be able to defend our group during our travels. But he would not be able to defend us from the entirety of the Addersfield guard complement. No, we need to occupy the guards, and a Ward Break is the best option available to us.”
I leaned back in my chair and let out a long sigh. “All right. Okay. I’m not saying I agree with this yet, but how do we do that? Break the wards? Hell, how do we even break the control slate?”
“Both can be achieved through the same device. A Ward Breaker. A highly illegal device, the design is a remnant of the last major conflict between the Kingdom and the Principality. It could be used to both break the wards and the control slate. I know how to construct one, and I can teach you how. The ease of use your Aetherial Melding provides means you should be able to create one. Well, after I give you a grounding in Abjuration.” Grey said, amending himself.
“Why can’t you make one? I mean, they already have you making a bunch of stuff already.” I said, waving at his desk that was strewn with a variety of tools.
“I cannot, unfortunately. The specifics of my binding prevent me from directly acting in a manner to free myself. Fortunately, that binding does not keep me from either speaking of how to escape or from indirectly acting to free myself. In this case, teaching another how to escape. My binding is suspiciously lenient in that one regard. Either Prince Anguis was abnormally careless with the design of my custom binding, or…”
“Or?” I asked.
“Or the blind spots in my binding are another indication that I was always meant to escape at some point. Perhaps at a much later date, when I could not prevent the Kingdom from burning down around me. Damn that dwarf.” Grey finished, glowering.
“I see,” I said quietly. I can’t imagine how much that stung, being strung along like that. “What’s Abjuration, then?”
Grey shook his head as if to clear the thoughts from it. He grabbed another glass from the tray that held the liquor we had been drinking and filled it with more dark brown booze. Cradling the glass, he answered me. “One of the thirteen schools of Magecraft. It primarily deals with defensive spells, such as ward crafting and other barriers. As you have yet to pass the first threshold and gained the ability to produce Mana, you would not be able to practice the art. But you would still be able to learn the fundamentals of the subject. You should be able to craft the Ward Breaker through Enchanting after you have a sufficient background in the subject. We’ll need to focus heavily on teaching you both Enchantment and Abjuration if we have any hope of success, however.”
I took a deep breath and held it for a moment, before breathing out. “Just…let me think on it, all right? I’m down for learning Enchanting and, uh, ‘Abjuration’, but I’m not sure about intentionally killing everyone in the entire town just yet. Let me sleep on it, all right?” I said, standing up from the table with a slight wobble. I wasn’t drunk, but I was at least tipsy.
Grey looked up at me somberly. “I understand, Nathan. I truly do. It’s not an easy decision to make, but remember this. There are no true non-combatants in this town, merely collaborators at the absolute best. Even if it’s a difficult decision, we have limited options, and the longer it takes for us to escape, the longer the bloodshed in the Kingdom will continue. The very foundations that hundreds of thousands, nay, millions rely on could come crumbling down if we linger here too long.”
“Yeah.” I sighed. “I’ll…keep that in mind.” Leaving Grey to stare into his glass forlornly, I left the table and the room altogether. Ascending the stairs, I opened the door to my room and flopped into my bed without changing out of my clothes.
Staring up at the ceiling, I only had one thought running through my mind.
Fuck.
I didn’t get much sleep that night.
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Comments
PreCursive
Oh, give him time. He's getting there.
Not N. Octopus
Nate if you don't remember the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away, but with Blood, John Brown is gonna come kick your ass.
